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NetBSD Project Application/Proposal HowTo

What is this page about?

To make the job of sorting out proposals and applications for NetBSD-related projects, e.g. in the Google Summer-of-Code, easier for us, there are a few questions that we would like to see answered in your project application, as outlined below.

Deadlines and directions for students' applications to the Google Summer-of-Code can be found on the Google pages.

A listing of possible NetBSD Summer-of-Code project suggestions can be found on the NetBSD Summer-of-Code page. We encourage you to come up with your own suggestions, if you can not find a suitable project there. You can find more project ideas on the NetBSD project ideas page. These are not directly applicable to Summer-of-Code, but may serve as ideas for your own suggestions.

About your project

  • What is the goal of the project? (Short overview)

  • What will be the deliverables of the project? (Code, documentation, ...)

  • Give an overview of how you intend to reach the project's goal in the form of milestones and a schedule.

  • Is similar software already available elsewhere, e.g. for Linux or any other BSD?

  • Is the project a port of software, or a rewrite? (remember: No GPL in the NetBSD kernel!)

About your project and NetBSD

  • How will your project integrate into NetBSD? (Userland tool, kernel subsystem, driver, patch set, pkgsrc, ...)

  • What interfaces in NetBSD will your project use? (Go into details here! What module/file names, functions, data structures etc. are of relevance for your project?)

  • To what degree are you familiar with those interfaces? (not/some/very, details?)

  • Is knowledge on other topics required for this project, e.g. on hardware, software other than NetBSD, APIs, protocols, etc.? If so, give details and references.

  • To what degree are you familiar with those? (not/some/very, details?)

  • If the project involves hardware (e.g. writing drivers, doing a port to new hardware, ...): do you own the hardware or have access to?

About you

  • Can you list some prior projects that you have worked on so far? Include details like programming language, duration, number of people involved, project goal, if you used CVS, SVN or similar, and whatever else we may find thrilling! If you have a CV/resume online, feel free to include a link.

  • Do you have any prior experience with programming NetBSD? In what area? If you did send some problem reports (PRs) or patches, please include references.

  • Have you previously discussed your project within NetBSD, either on a mailing list or with some specific developers? If so, please give us either the Names/EMail addresses of those developers or point us towards the discussions on our list (via http://mail-index.NetBSD.org/).

  • Is there anything else you'd like us to know? Did we forget any important details or questions?

Caveats

  • Please note that Google Summer-of-Code projects are a full (day-) time job.

  • A positive mid-term evaluation is only possible if usable code has been committed by that time. Make sure your schedule allows for this.